The present disclosure relates generally to a smart thermostat and more particularly to a smart thermostat with model predictive control. Thermostats are often configured to monitor and control the temperature of a building zone or other space. For example, a thermostat can be mounted on a wall within the building zone and configured to measure the temperature of the building zone. Thermostats typically send commands to HVAC equipment (e.g., on/off commands, heating/cooling commands, etc.) to cause the HVAC equipment to affect the temperature of the building zone.
Conventional thermostats operate according to a fixed temperature setpoint schedule which defines the temperature setpoints for the thermostat at various times. The temperature setpoint schedule is typically set by a user via a local user interface on the thermostat. In many implementations, a fixed temperature setpoint schedule leads to suboptimal control of the HVAC equipment, which can increase the cost of heating/cooling the building zone. It would be desirable to automatically determine optimal temperature setpoints for a thermostat in order to take advantage of time-varying energy prices, zone heat transfer characteristics, and/or other factors that can affect the cost of heating/cooling the building zone.